Last October, Saturday Morning Cartoons United, a non-profit screening series, launched in Los Angeles with the intention to celebrate iconic cartoon legends while offering support to those affected by the devastating wildfires of last year. Since its debut, the charity has hosted a special screening of The Care Bears Movie, a festive holiday event featuring Pee-wee Herman, and has more exciting programming planned for 2026.

Drawing on her professional background as a branding consultant and her lifelong passion for classic cartoons, Caro Buermann has created a one-of-a-kind charity event that brings the community together for a good cause, in collaboration with renowned voice actor Eric Bauza (the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and more).

Animation Scoop spoke with Caro about the mission of Saturday Cartoons United, the causes the charity supports, and the inspiration behind its evolving screening series for the new year.

(This Animation Scoop Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.)

LAUREN ASHTON: I’d love to chat about what it meant to open this project with the Care Bears legacy in mind, the inspiration behind Saturday Morning Cartoons United, and what exciting things may be in store.

CARO BUERMANN: I can speak to my personal love growing up with these titles. I feel like I never really grew up .When I’m not working on Saturday Morning Cartoons United, I have my own company where we work with so many of these incredible brands such as Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake.

All of this is like reliving my childhood and it’s so much fun. Care Bears was such a perfect partner for our very first screening because they celebrate love and caring and that’s really what Saturday Morning Cartoons is all about. As we go forward, we’re really trying to uplift and support our local creative arts community and our animation community specifically because everybody’s been facing a lot of challenges recently within the industry. We also had the fires last year. So we’re really grateful to these brands for supporting us and our events. 

LA: How did this wonderful idea for Saturday Morning Cartoons United come about?

CB: I’m based in Los Angeles, and, you know, experienced the terrible wildfires that we had last year. Very close friends of mine lost homes. And even if you didn’t lose your home, you were affected by this. Everyone came out of that with a story, and a lot of people still need help.

And even though the fires happened last year in January, a year later a lot of people are still not back in their homes, they’re displaced, just trying to get back up on their feet, etc. And in addition to the wildfires, we’re also supporting our local animation community, like I mentioned, and the industry challenges that people are facing that are ongoing. We’re glad to be partnering with such great brands to create a space of joy for people and to give back to our community through the charities we’re supporting. 

When the fires happened, I didn’t have a lot of money to donate. And I thought, “well, I don’t have a lot of money myself, personally, but I have my skills.” I’m professionally a branding and licensing consultant– Saturday Morning Cartoons is not my full-time job. It’s becoming a full-time job! But it’s not what I did for a living. 100% of our proceeds support the community. So anyways, we rallied the troops. And I have to give a shout out to my partner in this project, Eric Bauza. He’s been so amazing and he’s been really helping to bring the community together, because this doesn’t work without people coming together to support it. So yeah, we reached out to everyone and we threw out the net and Care Bears were first to say “we’re ready, let’s go.” And now we have others! We were originally thinking we’d launch this year, in 2026,. But we thought,” you know, it’s always a good time to do some good!” So we started in October and we’re really excited about what’s to come this year.

LA: It’s cool because the Care Bears have always stood for community and kindness. And so it seemed sort of serendipitous that that was the brand to kick off the whole thing. It seemed quite perfect. 

CB: It felt like a perfect fit. And all of the brands that we’re working with, we’re trying to celebrate milestones with each cartoon that we intend to feature. 

Last month during Christmas-time, we celebrated Pee Wee Herman with the estate at the Alex Theater. We were really excited to honor that legacy as well. And coming up, Betty Boop will be celebrated on Valentine’s Day! Lots of fun things are in store, and each brand that we work with has a really great message. 

LA: I think audience members of all ages will appreciate Saturday Morning Cartoons United, maybe right now more than ever. I think it’s important to try to keep film history alive and connect across generations, especially in a theater setting. Do you hope to bring together fans, creatives, and people that share a love for animation?

CB: Yes, and I’ll also mention that something we’re hoping to do with this series is create a platform for contemporary animators– not just a space to honor the legacy series, but we want to also create a space where new artists can share their work. Like for Care Bears, we showed a new animated short by Remy Poisson called “Nimbus” and it was really exciting. If animators would like to submit their work to us, we have a submission form on our website so that we can continue to share new work before each screening.

LA: Very cool, we’ll definitely spread the word! The Care Bears screening in October was wonderful, and I heard the Pee Wee Herman Christmas event was also a hit. 

CB: They’re events I’d want to go to! I’m a fan– you kind of have to be to work day and night on a charity like this. We’re living and breathing these cartoons. As fans ourselves, we also get excited when new collaborations come out. I’ve been first in line at the store for things…So when making all this, I thought, “what would I want to go to?” And if this does good, then why not!

LA: Speaking of doing some good– your partnership with Animaid is awesome. I remember when they announced it back at Annie’s last year.

CB: It’s so important what they’re doing. We’ve worked with ASIFA Hollywood in the past and supported them in previous events with our company. Now that we have Saturday Morning Cartoons United, and considering what happened with the fires, it’s so great that they’ve supported this program.

LA: Where can we learn more about what y’all are doing?

CB: Please check that out on the ASIFA Hollywood website .Our website, https://www.cartoonsunited.com/, links to them as well so people can donate. We’re giving all of our proceeds to them. Also check out https://legendsanimated.org/– they support student animators. And we don’t like just taking money from people, we take donations through our Patreon because we want people to get something out of their donation! You can donate to us by signing up there, and you’ll get a lot of really fun things (meet and greets with talent, goody bags, and more). So be sure to check out our website.

LA: Sounds like a great cause to support the community. And aside from that, so much fun! So, big picture: beyond the upcoming 2026 screenings you shared, where do you see this project going? What does the future look like?

CB: We’re really just getting started. We hope to support the community, and it’s going to take a community to make it happen. So as long as people continue to come out and show up for the brands and each other, I hope it will continue to happen. We want this to happen because we know it’s important to others, too. And of course, we want to create a place that is doing good. We’re looking to help by providing direct relief to community members who need it specifically, and we also want to create a place that brings joy to people long-term. I’d love to create a place where we can some day have a grant program for people, where they can apply for direct relief. But right now we’re continuing to do this for the charities that we support and we just want to keep it going. And the only way that’s going to happen is if people buy tickets or post about it! If you’re not in town, share it online. Just let people know about us, that this is happening, and let the brands know you’re excited about all of this so that we can continue partnering with them to do more. 

LA: Very cool. I love it! I hope y’all continue to sell out events. We can’t wait for Betty Boop on Valentine’s Day!

For more information on upcoming events or how to donate, please visit https://www.cartoonsunited.com/events. And be sure to follow Saturday Morning Cartoons United and Animation Scoop on Instagram for updates!